Political
Criminal Justice
Activism
Articles/Op-eds
Why Aren’t Cops Held to Account? Linda Greenhouse.
Decades of Supreme Court decisions have converted qualified immunity from a commonsense rule into a powerful doctrine that deprives people injured by police misconduct of recourse.
Reimagining the Public Defender, Sarah A. Seo.
“In Free Justice, Mayeux provides a historical example of a community-based public defender’s office that sought justice outside the courtroom. The Roxbury Defenders Committee, established in 1971 in a predominantly Black and poor neighborhood in Roxbury, Massachusetts, did fight vigorously for its clients in court. Its lawyers were known for “their eagerness to file motions, take cases to trial, and challenge actions taken by police and prosecutors,” all of which were possible because they strictly limited their caseload. But the Roxbury defenders also advocated for prisoners’ rights, hosted know-your-rights workshops for the community, published a neighborhood newsletter, and broadcast a weekly call-in radio show, as well as running a twenty-four-hour hotline for those who needed to speak to an attorney right away. As Mayeux puts it, the lawyers in the Roxbury office “reimagined the public defender not merely as a substitute for retained counsel…but as a friendly neighborhood resource.” Such legal services go beyond adversarial representation to further both individual and social justice.”
How Cities Lost Control of Police Discipline, Kim Barker, Michael H. Keller and Steve Eder.
"In the chaos of 1960s Detroit, a fledgling police union laid the groundwork for a system that, to this day, constrains discipline for officers accused of misconduct."
The Invention of the Police, Jill Lepore
It’s Time for Police to Stop Lying to Suspects, Saul Kassin.
“Innocent people are in jail because detectives tricked them.”
Who Belongs in Prison? By Adam Gopnik (See “Crime, Scapegoating, and Daily Life”)
Stop the Knee-Jerk Liberalism That Hurts Its Own Cause, By Nicholas Kristof
An Unjust Burden: The Disparate Treatment of Black Americans in the Criminal Justice System, Elizabeth Hinton, LeShae Henderson, and Cindy Reed (2018)
How Many Americans Are Unnecessarily Incarcerated? James Austin, Ph. D., Lauren-Brooke Eisen, J.D., James Cullen, B.A., and Jonathan Frank, J.D. (2016)
Highest to Lowest – Prison Population Rate, Institute for Criminal Policy Research (2019)
The Prison Paradox: More Incarceration Will Not Make Us Safer, Don Stemen (2017)
The War on Marijuana in Black and White, American Civil Liberties Union (2013)
More Imprisonment Does Not Reduce State Drug Problems, The Pew Charitable Trusts (2018)
Ending the War on Drugs, Betsy Pearl (2018)
Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration, American Civil Liberties Union (2011)
Increasing Employment for Individuals with Criminal Records, Jennifer L. Doleac (2016)
Felony Disenfranchisement, The Sentencing Project (2019)
There Are Huge Racial Disparities in How US Police Use Force, German Lopez (2018)
Police Violence, Use of Force Policies, and Public Health, Osagie K. Obasogie, Ph. D. and Zachary Newman, J.D.
Films
Time — an excellent documentary about an effort to gain the release of a prisoner.
Podcasts
Keeping Us Safe, Beyond Policing (With Dr. Phil Goff And Zach Norris)
How to Citizen with Baratunde.
Baratunde speaks with two esteemed guests, Dr. Phil Goff, who works directly with police departments around the country, and Zach Norris, who works with communities, about ways we can reclaim public safety that don’t always need to involve the police. Includes suggested internal and external actions concerning how to reclaim public safety.